Mepal Marchers Appealed to World Labour

Until very recently Mepal (Cambs.) aerodrome lay in disuse. Grass had begun to sprout on its runways. Its big black hangars were gaunt and empty. Its grey concrete control tower collected only cobwebs and dust. Mepal's contribution to the dispatch of death and destruction seemed to be over.

Now there is activity at Mepal once again. Outside the main gate a black board with yellow letters announces that the Robert McAlpine Construction Co. is at work.

McAlpines are laying the foundations of one of Britain's first rocket bases. Mepal is to dispatch death again—and this time on a more sinister and powerful scale.

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SILLY 'SECURITY' BLANKET. But, despite the silly attempts to smother news of Mepal's rebirth in a 'security' blanket, people are protesting.

Last Sunday over 300, at the call of Cambridge Labour Party, marched the six miles from Ely to Mepal to protest against the Tory preparations for thermo-nuclear war.

In the march were lads like Dai Evans, a stocky, 21-year-old Welsh labourer who had hitch-hiked 300 miles from his native Pembrokeshire 'to help bring public attention to what is happening'.

There were men like Councillor W. G. Russell, who had travelled over with a coachload of Romford Labour Party members.

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NORWOOD RESOLUTION. Councillor Russell, who was a delegate to last year's Labour Party conference, told me:

'I voted for the Norwood resolution—and I still believe we have to fight to make that the policy of the Labour Party.'

Behind the banner of the Cambridge branch of the Electrical Trades Union marched John Clarke, who is chairman of the Cambridge City Labour Party, and who believes that 'we should follow the example set by the Yokohama dockers'.

Another supporter of industrial action against the H-bomb and the rocket-bases was Ivor Jordan, a member of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers and chairman of Cambridge Trades Council.

'My union branch is on record for declaring work on these jobs "black",' he told me.

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WORLD LABOUR MOVEMENT. When the marchers reached the site they heard John Horner, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, moving a resolution calling for a campaign against the tests, the bases and nuclear diplomacy—and for 'the defeat of the Government'.

The resolution added: 'From this new centre of danger, a rocket base in eastern England, we call upon our fellow members of the Labour movements of the world, east and west, to think and act with us now to save peace.'

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NEXT TWO STEPS. What now? Says Peter Cadogan, who organized the march: 'It is rather early to judge but it really looks as though we have beaten the Government in the first round.

'That is to say, we have utterly destroyed the myth of "security". We have exposed to full public examination the rocket sites and the policy of building them. That was the essential first step.

'The next two steps are to implement the international Mepal Appeal by active contact with local socialist and trade union organizations throughout the world; and to see that the significance of Mepal is not lost on the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party conference.

'The Labour Party and trade unions locally must now take matters into their own hands. This is the only way to resolve both the crisis of policy and the crisis of leadership.'